While everyone else is wondering
Just why the British P.M. is backing G.W. Bush and his call for war the BBspot has figured it out and posted the story.
January 31, 2003
88359934
Did he cry wolf too often?
The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that the Iraqi government has forwarded a letter to the U.N. Secretary stating that it fears that the U.S. government may plant evidence that “Baghdad retains weapons of mass desctuction in an attempt to justify an invasion.”
This is actually a pretty smart move on Saddam’s part and presents the skeptical of us with an interesting delemma. On the one hand I would not put planting evidence as an excuse to start the war past the Bush Administration however on the other I do not trust the Iraqi government (yes, I know, this surprises the right wing but I never said that he was the Middle Eastern golden boy) not to claim that the U.S. planted anything that may be found during the inspection process.
Bush may have shot himself in the foot with the number of unproven and/or flimsy evidence claims he has made over the last few months (see post below) and if weapons of mass destruction are found we may never really know who put them there.
88337465
In a departure from the usual
Usually what gets put here is political in nature, with the more random ramblings, musings, and humour, saved for my discussion forum. Since the server the forum lives on seems to be experiencing some sort of technical difficulity rendering it unreachable I’ll just put this here.
In truth, if I had turned out to be Windows 2000 or something horrible like that you never would have seen this – Debian is cool, personally I’m a Slackware/Redhat fan with FreeBSD tendencies but it’s close.
January 30, 2003
88286897
This does seem a bit strange, but…..
Having Iraq as the chair of a conference on disarmament does seem a bit odd given the days we are living in (and the right wing is certainly screaming bloody murder about it) but then again if you have a look at the list of countries involved in the conference maybe not. There are some pretty heavily armed countries sitting around that particular table who have considerable stock piles of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, biological, and chemical) tucked away in their respective cubby holes in the interests of their own “national security” who do not necessarily bother to consider, or take seriously, the concerns of other world nations because, of course, they are “the good guys”, being forced to sit a bit further down the conference table for a while might be good for them.
As necessary as a heaping helping of humble pie is for all of us at various points in our lives we can expect a certain group of countries to boycott the proceedings (use your imagination as to who) but if all the participants can get their collective acts together for long enough to be mature about the whole thing, and everybody sits down and plays nice together for a few weeks, something good may come out of it.
January 29, 2003
88249739
Pots and kettles, pots and kettles
2002 was marked by significant steps backward on human rights. The arbitrary detention of non-citizens, secret deportation hearings for persons suspected of connections to terrorism, the authorization of military commissions to try non-citizen terrorists, the failure to abide by the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of detainees held by the United States in Cuba, and the military detention without charge or access to counsel of U.S. citizens designated as “enemy combatants,” were among the U.S. actions that indicated the failure of the Bush administration to respect human rights and humanitarian law in its anti-terrorist campaign. These measures primarily affected non-citizens, eroding their basic rights and due process protections. Longstanding human rights problems in the United States continued as well, including police abuse, application of the death penalty, overincarceration of low-level offenders, primarily African-Americans and the poor, and the treatment of prisoners..
Full article here
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It couldn’t be said better than this
“The spectacle of the United States, armed with
its weapons of mass destruction, acting without
Security Council authority to invade a country in
the heartland of Arabia and, if necessary, use its
weapons of mass destruction to win that battle, is
something that will so deeply violate any notion
of fairness in this world that I strongly suspect it
could set loose forces that we would deeply live to regret,”
From this article at the Reuters news service.
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And when they counted the votes……
…..the results were:
Attack now: 4 (Bulgaria, Spain, the United States and Britain )
Give the inspectors time to do a decent job: 11 (France, Russia and China, which all have veto power, as well as Germany, Mexico, Chile, Guinea, Cameroon, Syria, Angola and Pakistan)
I’m not gonna give odds on cooler heads making any difference here but as long as there’s hope………….
88246298
Even Stormin Norman thinks so
The last guy to go in and kick Saddams ass has joined the growing ranks of people who think that the U.S. Administration is jumping the gun on this whole Iraq thing. According to the story “He worries about the Iraqi leader, but would like to see some persuasive evidence of Iraq’s alleged weapons programs.”
He, like millions the world over, are still waiting to see the evidence the U.S. Administration says it has but has been less than forthcoming with to date.
And now, for something completely different: Welcome to any of the good folks from the ]boxtalk[ list that may happen by, enjoy your stay!
88226956
Not political at all
But I bet it is controversial as far as the conventional religious mythologies are concerned so it gets a home on Stage Left.
This article found on the CNN.com/Science & Space pages may be a little old but it sure is interesting and provides the following image of what Jesus may have looked like.
